Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily for Wednesday 7th November 2018. It’s Martyn Lee here and I’ve been through EV story today so you don’t have to.

Thank you to MYEV.com for helping make this show, they’ve built the first marketplace specifically for Electric Vehicles. It’s a totally free marketplace that simplifies the buying and selling process, and help you learn about EVs along the way too.

The wholly-owned Daimler subsidiary Accumotive at the Kamenz location in Germany will employ around 1,000 people until end of the year 2018, that’s double the current number.

Accumotive was founded in 2009 is producing lithium ion-batteries for vehicles of the brands Mercedes-Benz and smart. At present a second battery factory is being built at this site with an investment of 500 Mio. Euros.

Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars said: “We are taking big steps in the direction of electromobility. At Accumotive we will double the amount of employees until the end of the year 2018. We will achieve this almost one year earlier than initially planned. We are thus heading for the start of production of the EQC in spring 2019”.

By 2022, Daimler will electrify the entire portfolio of Mercedes-Benz, offering customers at least one electrified alternative in all segments. The company is planning to offer more than 130 electrified vehicle variants. Thereof more than ten will be fully electric passenger cars – throughout all segments, from the smart to the large SUV. The first Mercedes-Benz of the new product- and technology brand EQ will be the EQC, which will be ramped-up in spring 2019 in the Mercedes-Benz Bremen plant and then will reach the market in mid-2019.

Daimler is investing more than one billion Euros in a global battery production network with in total eight factories at six locations and on three continents.

Daimler’s commercial vehicles are also relying on batteries from Saxony in the course of electrifying their portfolio. Both the Vans Vito and Sprinter will be equipped with drive batteries from Kamenz at the market launch in 2019, as will the current eCanter, the Fuso light truck from Daimler Trucks.

“Volkswagen will on Thursday get a taste of the anger felt by duped German diesel drivers when consumer groups file the country’s first class-action suit over an emissions cheating scandal. Their legal action has been made possible by new legislation taking effect on November 1 that was hurried through to beat a year-end statute of limitations for claims against VW.” reports The Local Germany: “Justice Minister Katarina Barley said “an estimated two million” VW owners could benefit from the new law, although the suit will start on a smaller scale. Germans have grown increasingly irritated by “dieselgate” fallout as they face plummeting resale values of diesel cars and looming driving bans in big cities due to pollution concerns. In line with legal guidelines, the initial complaint will represent just 10 disgruntled VW drivers. If judges deem the case admissible, a decision expected in no more than two weeks, judicial authorities will open a register allowing others to join the collective action. Those eligible is anyone who bought a Volkswagen car or one of the group’s Audi,Skoda or Seat brands with a diesel EA 189 engine from November 2008.”

Domenick at InsideEV’s has been reporting today on the news of VW putting their money where their mouth it, or rather their factories where there EVs will be: “With the factory situation for that first model sorted — production of the Hatch is slated for a plant in Zwickau, Germany — the automaker is turning its attention to other production possibilities in Europe, and could switch two other facilities to electric vehicle production.”

Euronews says: “Volkswagen will consider plans to convert its factories in Emden, and Hannover, Germany to build electric cars during a strategy review on November 16. Volkswagen currently builds the VW Passat passenger car in Emden but the sedan segment has suffered from sagging demand as customers flock to buy sports utility vehicles, prompting a review of the factory’s future. Handelsblatt also said the multi-brand carmaking group will review plans to build a new plant for its Skoda brand, outside the Czech republic.”

Nikola aren’t planning on building their hydrogen semi for many years, however they’re both very good at announcements and throwing shade in the direction of electric trucks. They were also throwing law suits at Tesla but that looks like it’s all over.

Welcome onto the scene the Nikola Tre: ” hydrogen-powered semi with up to 1,000 horsepower, up to 2,000 pound-feet of torque, and a range of over 700 miles, meant to take on the Tesla Semi and every other truck…with ranges given of 500 to 1,000 horsepower, “up to” 2,000 pound-feet of torque, and 500 to 1,200 kilometers (or 310 miles to 745 miles) of range on Nikola’s website.” says Jalopnik: “Nikola is claiming other advantages over diesel trucks, such as quick acceleration, better fuel economy, better braking, a lower center of gravity, and autonomous capability.”

Guests at the April 16-17 Nikola World in Phoenix will be able to view a prototype display of the Nikola TRE, along with other new zero-emission products from Nikola including the production intent Nikola TWO.

Nikola Motor Company Founder and CEO Trevor Milton said: “”It will be the first European zero-emission commercial truck to be delivered with redundant braking, redundant steering, redundant 800Vdc batteries and a redundant 120 kW hydrogen fuel cell, all necessary for true level 5 autonomy. Expect our production to begin around the same time as our USA version in 2022-2023.”

European testing is projected to begin in Norway around 2020. Nikola is also in the preliminary planning stages to identify the proper location for its European manufacturing facility.

Nikola is currently working with Nel Hydrogen of Oslo to provide hydrogen stations for USA.

Pedro Lima from Push EVs has picked up on Korean sales of the Hyundai Kona: “Last month in South Korea, Hyundai sold 2,473 units” of the Kona Electric. “This represents a nice production increase, considering that in the previous month (September), only 1.382 units of the Hyundai Kona Electric were sold in South Korea and even less in August (648). Anyway, while production numbers are still far from ideal, Hyundai is now increasing production of the Kona Electric much faster than it did for the super-efficient Hyundai IONIQ Electric. The most important reason for this is battery supply. With the LG Chem battery cell plant in Poland already operating and supplying European automakers, there is more battery cell local production available for domestic automakers (Kia and Hyundai) in South Korea. Furthermore, while the Hyundai IONIQ Electric still uses a rarer battery cell chemistry – that I suspect it to be NCM 523 -, the Kona Electric uses the more mainstream NCM 622 battery cells.”

There are some impressive stats around Jaguar’s first all-electric car, such as the I-PACE making up over 85% of Jaguars registrations in the Netherlands according to RAI Data, that’s 209 last month (thank you Matthias Schmidt for the info). But the number many have waited for is the EPA rated range. And that has now been officially classified as 234 miles.

The 90kWh battery pack has been talked about in terms of 240 miles, which is a lot more realistic than the WLTP number of 292 miles.

I’ve not seen enough YouTube videos and real world tests in all conditions to know what to think about the range.

For instance the Tesla Model X 75D is rated for 238 miles and 93 MPGe, a larger and heavier car.

GENERAL MOTORS IS BUILDING AN EBIKE AND WANTS YOU TO NAME IT

“GM is keenly aware that it can’t depend on car sales going forward, and that now includes venturing beyond cars. The company has revealed that it’s working on two e-bikes, one compact and one folding, ahead of a launch sometime in 2019. It didn’t say much about the machines, but their low-slung designs make it clear that the focus is on efficiency rather than raw performance.” according to Engadget: “GM is crowdsourcing a name for its bike brand through a challenge that will award $10,000 for the winning name, and $1,000 each for the nine runners-up. You have until November 26th “

“Tesla wants to convince more customers to buy its Autopilot upgrade. The company just cut the price of its “Enhanced Autopilot” package by $1,500 for qualifying customers. The driver assistance features include automatic parking, lane change help and traffic-aware cruise control.” says CNN Business today; “Tesla customers who don’t already have Enhanced Autopilot and have never partaken in a free trial of the service are eligible to test it at no charge for 30 days. For a week after the trial, they are eligible to receive the upgrade for $5,500 instead of $7,000”

Tesla’s own blog on the UK site now says: “The 14-day Enhanced Autopilot trial is free for all Tesla owners who have not yet purchased an Autopilot package. You will have the option to purchase permanent Enhanced Autopilot functionality via the car’s touchscreen or through your Tesla Account at any time during or after the trial. The price to purchase Enhanced Autopilot is £5,700 for cars with Full-Self Driving hardware (Hardware 2)”

SPACEX’S STARMAN ROADSTER HAS VENTURED PAST MARS

And finally…”Starman and its Tesla Roadster are officially a long, long way from home. SpaceX has confirmed that Falcon Heavy’s test payload has passed Mars’ orbit, putting it at one of its greatest distances away from the Sun” according to Engadget: “the spaceborne dummy won’t make a close approach to Earth until two years from now on November 4th, 2020, and even then it’ll be 0.35AU (32 million miles) away. It’ll be much closer to Mars, getting within 0.05AU (4.6 million miles) on October 6th of that year. You may not see a truly close Earth visit until 2091.”

And thanks to MYEV.com they’ve set us another Question Of The Week. Keep your comments coming in on email and YouTube…

What’s the ideal way to get access to driving Electric Cars? Buy? Lease? Subscribe? Car sharing scheme? Tell me how you did / will drive an electric car.

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